The Final Blanket

With the Sunshine Throw, I officially close the 2011 Blanket Challenge. This blanket, so nicely modeled by Lola, is blanket number eight and is a beauty. There are two geeky knitting things that make the sunshine throw special. First, it uses a slip stitch technique to work two colors at once, creating the illusion of the decreasing and increasing vertical lines. Second, it has a two strand i-cord border that gives the edge a nice bulkiness and texture. Everything about this pattern came together perfectly. I couldn’t be happier with the end result and am excited to give it to a knitting friend/new mom.

As for the timing on finishing this blanket, it just makes me sad. I had planned for this blanket to take me a month, which would have meant that I met my goal of eight blankets in six months. Instead, life, work, the house and summer got in the way and it took me two months to finish. At the five month mark I had completed seven blankets and had just one to go. Success seemed like a sure thing. Oh well, I don’t regret any of the non-knitting things I did. All told, in seven months I completed eight blankets, which is still more than one a month.

Here is one of the happy recipients. He says this is the best blanket he’s ever had. The first day with the blanket he was already picking out a name for it. Last I heard the blanket was “Blue McQueen”.